“The potential release of mercury into the upper atmosphere by the firing of mercury-fueled thrusters could almost double the total atmospheric mercury emission

“The potential release of mercury into the upper atmosphere by the firing of mercury-fueled thrusters could almost double the total atmospheric mercury emissions the U.S. is currently responsible for“ Thanks for HN educating me. This would become a significant source of modern US environmental mercury contamination. However, if you summed up all the coal fired power plant mercury emissions over time, this still seems insignificant. It’s not clear how long the mercury cycle takes for mercury to get locked into ocean sediment (effectively out of the food web). If it’s on the order of thousands of years, then satellite propellants are unlikely to be major contributors. But the scale is surprising, and I would congratulate the FCC for pushing this restriction.